On January 8 in 1935, the king of rock and roll was born in Tupelo, Mississippi. The child was born to Gladys Love Presley and named after the middle name of his father, Vernon Elvis Presley.
Thirty-five minutes before Elvis Presley was born, an identical twin brother named Jesse Garon Presley was delivered, stillborn. The deliveries took place in a small two-room house that Vernon had built in preparation for the anticipated births.
Ten years later, Elvis gave his first public performance, standing on a chair at a fair to reach the microphone and dressed as a cowboy. He sang, “Old Shep.”
In those pre-YouTube days, he made his first recording eight years later when he was eighteen. He went to Sun Records in Memphis to pay to record a couple of songs, with the first recorded sounds of that voice singing, “My Happiness.”
There are varying stories about whether he simply wanted to record a song for his mother or whether he thought the recording might lead to his discovery. Either way, you can hear the start of something there.
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